


The Conductor's Causality

by Grandpas_Cheesebarn, InterstellarToaster



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And just fixing ending when I'm sad, Canonical Character Death, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hnng I'm a hoe for second pov, M/M, POV Second Person, Self-Indulgent, Slice of Life, Time Travel Fix-It, Vague, Vague Reader, the plot is here it's just
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 13:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13928127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grandpas_Cheesebarn/pseuds/Grandpas_Cheesebarn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterstellarToaster/pseuds/InterstellarToaster
Summary: A gun fires, but Gatsby doesn't die. A person on the other side of the water packs away a smoking rifle and leaves."You leaned close, listening to the sounds, hearing the things your rifle had to say. The proper conductor did not play for the orchestra: they directed, let the instruments lead the way. With the cold metal of the scope pressed against your eye, you prepared for a symphony."





	The Conductor's Causality

**Author's Note:**

> Short and sweet, so I can stop feeling sad about the book and the movie, because I'm a sucker for happy endings
> 
> Title meaning: the cause and effect of the right person in the right place at the right time

There was something decidedly tragic about the lot of them. You realized this on that calm, Sunday afternoon, when the Long Island Sound was nothing but a quiet memory and the sky seemed a morose kind of blue. You could remember the feeling of blood (warm, smearing under fingernails, copper in your mouth) and the way the water stained red (a pool of it, crystallized in time), and you'd never forget the scream Nick gave when he came running back (horrified, wrenched, fear, and then the solemn keen of an animal at death.)

You'd seen it hundreds of times before, and you'd see it many more again. Not the same scene, of course, but close enough: there are the lovers, and there is the death, the gaping maw of tragedy that bears down. And, just like every other time, you found yourself perplexed, unhappy. It was distressing, decidedly so, as though you had tried to solve a puzzle without the last pieces– and then the entire thing had spontaneously burst into flames, and that was the end of the entire affair. It left you unsatisfied, frowning, a gross chill leaving you as you examined the waters. There should have been some ending that made sense, some ending that wouldn't have had the heartbreak of a howling abyss thrown at them, the two men with their lives hopelessly tangled around one another. Some ending without the death of Gatsby. 

Perhaps that was why you were walking along the shoreline at that moment, strolling comfortably despite the heat. There were rules against this kind of thing, rules that ran across several pages, with concise print and ineffable caution. At one point, you'd been the one that had enforced those rules. But time made you weary, and so you decided that, just for once, you'd bend.

On the bank of the distant shore, higher up than you were tall, stood the mansion of Jay Gatsby. It wasn't hard to see, as you lowered yourself down to the warm sands beneath you. Your vest was scratchy and the boots left imprints on the soft ground, but you unbound your weapon without so much as a whisper. You leaned close, listening to the sounds, hearing the gentle things your rifle had to say. The proper conductor did not play for the orchestra: they directed, let the instruments play. With the cold metal of the scope pressed against your eye, you prepared for a symphony. 

"You're worth the whole lot of them!" Nick shouted as he left, only a lawn away at any given time. It had been a happy summer, warm honey that drew slowly across the ground. You would remember it fondly, and they would remember it as one of the best. The heat shaped their saccharine-soaked dreams into languidness, the sound of the waters and a steady stuccato of breathing your only companion. Aside from Mr. Gatsby himself, that is. He floated on the water, dozing, lost in a haze of would-be's and should-have's. He, of course, didn't notice Mr. Wilson's approach.

Mr. Wilson had a gun. He stood noiselessly on the patio, and even from so far away, you could see the terrible sorrow that held him. His pistol was cradled in the way that a mother might hold a child, the way a man might hold the empty corpse of his wife, the child he would ever have, the future that held nothing. Wilson rose the pistol up, the calm of a man with nothing left. In turn, you drew your breath in, and grazed the rifle trigger with your finger. _Wait_ , it seemed to hum, and so you waited. 

"What the Hell do you think you're-" Came the horrified, fearful voice of Nick Carraway, standing only feet away from Wilson. Nick, you distantly noted, did not have a gun. In fact, he didn't even have on shoes. His only defense was a glare, which he attempted to use upon Mr. Wilson- with little success, might I add. This, inevitably, drew Gatsby's attention, the way that Mr. Carraway had always drew Gatsby's attention, and then the entire pool became infused with stillness. Tense anxiety from two men, cold distance from another. Wilson's aim didn't waver from Gatsby, your aim didn't waver from Wilson. The waves behind you fiddled with your bootstraps, and as you held your breath, your rifle finally sung. You fired. 

In that moment, the world seemed to stop. The bullet left the chamber, flying towards Wilson, calling out his name. You could see Gatsby's fearful expression, trained on Nick, as Mr. Carraway prepared to pounce on the gunman. The crack of your gun destroyed the peaceful silence of the Long Island Sound, resounding, just enough of a distraction to drew the brief flicker of Mr. Wilson's attention. You felt sorry for him. A blink, and the bullet met him, and he crumbled to the ground, wet papier-mâché construct of a man who'd died the instant Tom had come into his life. And as Wilson died, and Nick rushed forward, and Gatsby called out to his friend, his dearest and only friend, you packed up your rifle and prepared to leave. Anywhere but here, really. The world, perhaps, would be better for your interference, but your presence was unneeded any longer. And though they couldn't see you, you still gave the men a brief wave, before walking off, the only evidence of your existence the impression left in the sands and a spent bullet casing from a time far off and away.

**Author's Note:**

> I guess the reader is some kinda time traveling future cop? Or maybe they're just a Concerned Citizen. Who is also a cop. Don't think about it too hard, I wrote it just for fun. Next time I'll just suplex Tom or something


End file.
